


Ave María

by MiseryAccompanied



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: Blood, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Dark Fantasy, Graphic Description, Introspection, One-Sided Attraction, Other, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide, Unrequited Crush, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:28:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26838970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiseryAccompanied/pseuds/MiseryAccompanied
Summary: In which Marta's been having bad thoughts since Harlan's death.
Relationships: Marta Cabrera & Ransom Drysdale
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Ave María

The moon rests at its highest perch of the night. Full and fat, glowing silver with an intensity akin to judgment. It was always like this, when the moonlight shone through the curtains like a spotlight, that Marta’s eyes would find themselves thrusting open. A gasp, a sob: ‘ _Oh, god,_ _Harlan!’_ Her thoughts, both waking and asleep, a mixture of horror and anguish. Suddenly, feeling caged, she throws herself from underneath the thick layers of her bedlinens. Her chest gives a great heave, her ribcage rattling with a broken sob as she’s torn from her nightmare.

His neck, a crimson waterfall where it bears his fatal wound, is a fresh and gruesome sight in her mind’s eye. She weeps wholly at the way the image is scarred into her brain. She weeps for the way that, its not just her mind that is irreplaceably damaged, but her _heart_ as well. A friend, a dearest friend, lost to the world— _lost to her_ —because a vicious and deceitful grandchild.

A conniving monster that would have had her thrown in prison over _money_. How Harlan’s _life_ could be so easily taken over a fortune that didn't even belong to him. To any of them. It was beyond Marta, how anything and **everything** could have a _price_ , until being introduced into the world of Harlan’s horrible family and the corruptions of wealth.

How she had come to them so naïve, so unspoiled. How her goodness had made her so beloved by their patriarch. She was like a Cinderella of sorts, with Harlan cast not as her prince, but her fairy god mother. But, here, in the real world, there is no glass slipper, no pumpkin carriage or prince charming.

There is no happily ever after here. Just a terrorized, traumatized girl in a big house and a dead man’s bed.

So triumphant and true she must have looked, poised above her wicked stepfamily that day. But... the coffee was bitter, burning on her tasteless tongue. The air was sharp and biting. Her body ached from Ransom’s attempt on her life; muscles pulsating, bones aching, a bruise blossoming across her chest where he landed with the trick-knife.

Marta did not feel so _pure_ of heart as anger and grief spread throughout her core, poisoning her. She did not feel as though justice was served as she turned the Thrombey's away from _her_ home. Watching Ransom being pushed into the back of a cruiser did not bring closure. Instead she felt bereft. Hollow. Wrathful. _Lost._

That day—no, that _night_ , **the** night of the party—Ransom knocked her completely out of orbit. All because Harlan wanted to give her her own place in the world. ‘ _Bastard… asshole… monster…’_ Another sob escaped her. Another painful, piercing sound of grief freed from her gut. _How he could do that_ — _she_ hated _Ransom. Hated_ him with every fibre of her being.

And in that darkened bedroom, illuminated only by the watchful eye of the moon, her cries morphed into something _hideous_ and _cruel_. Into something that Marta feared more than anything in the world. They morphed into _gagging_.

The greatest betrayal of them all, the way her stomach roiled and heaved at the thought of _hating_ Ransom. Her body and mind in total opposition, sworn and hated enemies in this matter because of the war in her heart.

A killer, a brat, a monster in every conceivable way, but … _but_ that _compassion_ he had shown to her, no matter how feigned and fake. No matter how perfectly contrived to trick and fool her, had caused a shift, _such a shift_ , in her geography. Suddenly, nothing made sense in the map of her mind.

He wanted to _help_ her, he offered her a _partnership_. _Equals._ Or perhaps… _something beyond that.._. had things not have gone so utterly wrong. Maybe, in the right circumstance, in the right light, Ransom could have seen her in the same way that Harlan did— _and then some_. Instead of ignoring her and abusing her kindness, like the rest of his family so often did, he could have sought her brightness and let it warm him from the inside out.

A cold man, cold family, that desperately could have used some light.

Marta’s head was halfway in the bin beside the bed now, fists curled in the plush rug beneath her. Her tears did not pause as she willed her stomach to stop its open rebellion. It was enough that she was grieving, it was enough that she had been a witness of— _and, at one time, thought the cause of_ —her friend’s suicide. It was most definitely enough that she was almost a victim of Ransom’s scheming, herself.

But this? This was its own unnecessary punishment.

_Heave. Cough. Gag..._

“No…” Marta protested in a wet and angry whisper. A realization. A wave of shame. Suddenly, there was a newfound reason for her nausea. The armature of her suffering... its architect.

When Ransom had thrown himself at her, even with knife-drawn, it stirred something within her. Something foreign... _unspeakable_. Buried so deep within the abyss of her mind, so far and so dark that only the wrestling chaos of her nightmares could dredge it up to light—

_Desire._

Desire for _Ransom_.

Not just in his charming and princely appearances, but his rage and brutality. The frightful beauty of his face drawn up, his teeth bared with bloodlust. Something awakened; something _broke_.

The pain in her chest caused not by a blade, but the kindling of a black flame by a cruel man. A reality, separate from everything she knew, being born in that heated attack.

No one is all good.

No one is pure of heart.

Not even _her._

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my drafts since I saw the movie. It's more rambling than anything, but I like how it turned out.  
> Also, I have the weirdest chest feelings about Chris Evans being an asshole in a sweater, lol.


End file.
